


Dusk to Dawn

by doperperson



Category: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doperperson/pseuds/doperperson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles courtesy of a variety of prompts. Short, loose n' messy. Majority of chapters will likely focus on Midna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jewels

The diadem they place upon her head at the crux of her coronation is a delicate little thing, but an antique dating back only Twili historians know how long; the few spriglike rods it’s made up of descend over her temple and end at the bridge of her nose. The jewel of her family House Eventide—the ruby that signified her lord father and lady mother before her, and her paternal grandparents before them, and so on and so forth—is encased in the twisting boughs of metal, a glittering diamond upon her forehead.

It weighs no more than a few ounces, at most, gemstone and all; and yet it is as though the Head Sage has placed the weight of the realm itself upon her crown, not just a silly piece of jewelry signifying her rule. Standing from her kneel is markedly difficult, and suddenly she feels nervous as she looks out across the sea of faces. They are her subjects, now: most, future victims to her ignorance and arrogance; one, who will soon become her worst enemy; and some, friends who are nearly family, who will perhaps suffer most of all because of her foolishness.

But the sixteen-year-old doesn’t know any of this, not then, and so she remains blissfully unaware of the destiny weighted upon her shoulders. She turns back to the Sages who are gathered upon the ceremonial dais with her, the ones who have inducted her as the realm’s ruler in this holy ceremony, and bows low.

When she rises, she is reborn.

“ _Welcome your new Twilight Princess!_ ”


	2. Dusk

She was five when she learned the truth of her realm and the bloodied history of their people.

While her parents thought her too young to handle the grisly details and depressing facts, her grandfather felt differently. He was half-mad in his old age, but her mother said he had been a soldier, once, and that he was suffering from the loss of her own mother, and that he deserved the utmost respect. So she listened to every word he said, often without a complaint; the tales he usually told her during his visits were wildly fanciful and, even better,  _true_ , because he had been there when they happened (even if her mother told her otherwise). 

 _This_ visit was different. Something was off about her grandfather; he was more tired than usual, thinner, calmer. His story wasn’t full of vigor and he wasn’t making up voices for the characters.

Instead, he spoke to her as if she were an adult, telling her of blood and black magic and banishment, of moonlight and sunbeams, of goddesses and spirits that wielded the power of the very sunlight they lived in; and of how their own ancestors had tried to steal that golden power, and wound up losing it all, judged and locked away by the spirits themselves to rot in the shadows for all eternity.

His story had ended on one hopeful note, a beacon bleaker than the shades themselves, but there nonetheless: if they could rid themselves of the avarice their ancestors had cursed them with, then the impossible could happen. A man could become a beast with the magic of the sunset, and a Light Dweller could return them to the light they so feared and so cherished.

Her grandfather died a day later, and it was weeks before she could look at the sky without crying.

*** * ***

She was fourteen and in grieving from her father’s recent passing when she realized the Divine Beast wasn’t real.

Her grandfather’s story had been true, though the nightmares it had caused in childhood had been traded for teenage apathy; the gory details and the hopelessness were long since forgotten. Still, that childish belief in the one who could save them all had clung on well into adolescence, nursed by supposed ‘historical accounts’ as much as lullabies.

Grief changed everything.

If the Divine Beast were real, he wouldn’t have let her father die. If he were real, he would’ve saved them all from the perpetual twilight, and her papa’s sickness would’ve been cured by the magical sunlight, and her parents would be happy together, and they’d all live there together, and Hadin would still be her best friend and wouldn’t make her papa upset by taking her mother away.

When she brought it up with them, angry and screaming, her tired mother told her it was time she stopped believing in fairy tales, anyways.

She stopped looking to the glimmer of sunlight at the edge of the realm every night before she went to bed. 

*** * ***

She was on the cusp of twenty and had her own bloodied history behind her when she knew the truth of her grandfather’s old tale.

There had never been an ending to it, and perhaps there would never be one; but she liked to think she had some part in rewriting the story.

The usurper and his puppeteer were gone, and the Mirror that had made it all possible was shattered, shifting in the dunes of Arbiter’s Grounds.

She had seen the world of light; guided and befriended a hero; shared a soul with a wise princess; and above and beyond, changed and grew in ways no one had ever expected.

Returning to having a perpetual twilight all around her after a year of sunrises and sunsets was much like the comforting embrace of an old friend. 

The twilight no longer scared her, as it had when she was a fearful child; it did not give her hope, as it had when she was a naive teenager. To a woman grown, it simply  _was_. Something that went without notice and yet was always there; the one constant in her life, unlike so many other things.

Every day, she looked upon the dusk sky and thought of sunlight.


End file.
